


Transcending Lifetimes

by theGirlwithtoomanyOTPs



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra, Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/F, Friendship, semi-non-canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-10
Updated: 2016-01-10
Packaged: 2018-05-12 23:32:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5685853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theGirlwithtoomanyOTPs/pseuds/theGirlwithtoomanyOTPs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"Do you really think friendships can last more than one lifetime?" Toph asks, afraid and unsure.</i>
  <br/>
  <i>"I don't see why not." Aang tells her, sure and filled with promise.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Transcending Lifetimes

**Author's Note:**

> I'm never over the Avatar Universe and Toph Beifong. Btw, ziraseal (the awesome person who wrote Camp Amon) pointed out Aang dies before Sokkaa. I'm sorry about the mistake. It totally just... Slipped my mind. L

Toph stays at the edge of the main mourners while Tenzin bends his father's ashes into the air as had been the custom of the Airbenders more than a hundred years ago. He sheds tears as his body moves in a dance he never wanted to ever learn and do.

 

His mother,a grey and worn Katara, stands silent and passive as Kya cries on her shoulder and Bumi holds her fragile hand in his rough, calloused and shaking hand. The newly promoted Commander’s eyes are red rimmed and his lips are a tight line.

 

The air is filled with soft cries, more than Toph has heard ever since the end of the Hundred Years' War. From behind her, filled boats in the Yue bay and as far back into the City itself, hundreds and thousands of people of all Nations cry in grief at the loss of their hero.

 

Lin and Suyin stand with enough space to give their family what they need. Beside them is a stoic Firelord Zuko and his daughter, Izumi and her own young and confused children, who will take his place next summer. Ursa stands crying softly. She does not yet understand why Grandpa Aang has left. Her young brother, Iroh, fidgets beside his upset sister. He is also too young to understand anything right now. Meanwhile, Lin stands away from Suyin enough for everyone to know she is still unhappy with her sister. Su does not look her way again after Lin ignored her earlier and does not let go of her husband’s hand once. Lin does not watch her friend and ex-lover give his father to the skies.

 

All the while Lin keeps her eyes at the ashes that are quickly becoming invisible.

 

Toph stays leaning on the tree that gives her plenty shade. She smells magnolia blossoms and knows that she will forever associate it to loss; to a friend’s death.

 

First Sokka, now Aang.

 

She had been unable to go to Sokka's funeral in the South Pole many years ago. She didn't have the time, she said. Triad busts were coming along and she didn't want to risk any more death. Her friends understood, however, that it was because she was afraid to say goodbye and left without her. Sokka was her best friend and her first and last real love. It was unrequited and the idiot never found out, but how do you say good bye to so many years of friendship, love and memories?

 

She had long since decided to hold on to the last day they had together before his accident. Taking Lin and Su to the zoo and having lunch at the park. He said he'll take them out again in two weeks, after his trip to the Fire Nation to cover some business concludes. She never hears his heartbeat again. She never even felt his cold, lifeless body. A lifeless body felt too much like a rock. And Toph knew she would go crazy, feel the need to bend him back to life and look like a fool. No, she couldn’t stand to see her best friend anything other than how she knew him; alive, funny and spouting out the occasional stupid nonsense despite his keen sense of intellect.

 

She doesn't want to go say good bye to Aang, too. But she owed Katara enough funerals. (Suki, Ty Lee, Mai, Hakoda and more.) She can't see, but she knows how to make tea. Years with Iroh made sure of that. Maybe Zuko can serve the tea, like he used to.

 

She fights the tears that has made everything taste salty and gooey. She was a goddamn adult. The Chief of Republic City police, a hero of the Hundred Years’ War, and the first ever Metalbender, for Spirit's sake. She was not going to cry. They can't all live forever and she’s getting too old to be Chief.

 

Tenzin starts bending Appa's ashes next and Toph uses the back of her hand to wipe away the snot under her nose.

 

 

She sees Aang in Korra. Her despair was a mimicry of when he lost his bison in Si Wong desert.

 

She is quieter than from what she heard. 9and much more a whiny pussy.) Korra was supposedly hard where Aang was soft and smooth where Aang had his edges. She reminds herself that this is an entirely different person from her lost friend. But she could feel her heavy and burdened spirit (so like Aang's during the war) with each step. She’s gone through her own battles and feels lost. She would be. She was just a young girl.

 

But she sees Aang's playfulness when she tries to attack her. Her bending isn't sneaky. (No one can sneak up on her anyway.) Toph feels vibrations not only from the earth but in the sound they create with the air.

 

She tells the young Avatar with as much snarkiness she can manage, "You’re blind compared to me."

 

It has been a _long_ time since she’s been with anybody who can speak. It feels pretty good roughing somebody up. But of course she can only take people for so long.

 

She finds herself angry as she finds traces of mercury in Korra even if she really doesn’t know why. But gives her the same thing; tough love. Bend it out yourself, basically. Toph has grown old enough to know that healing also requires your own effort. Healing the spirit and the soul can only be done by you.

 

She teaches her the way she does Twinkletoes. With faster results. She likes this kid.

 

She lives long enough to attend her wedding to the Sato girl. She indignantly approves in secret. Better than another Sugar Queen, she thinks. Plus no one forces her to wear a dress like when Zuko married Mai and she appears in the same clothes she had been wearing when she first met Korra. No one makes a comment but Katara. She ignores the woman and ducks as water tries to whip her. She sticks her tongue out.

 

“Too slow. You're getting _old_.”

 

And when Korra teases her that the only way you can get the great Toph Bei Fong out from wherever she’s hiding would be good food, she punches her arm and smirks when she hears the cry of pain. Nothing she can't handle, anyway.

 

Korra smiles and embraces Toph then pulls back. Korra doesn't say anything and punches her arm too.

 

“What a weakling,” Toph gruffly snorts and Korra just laughs.

 

Toph starts her journey back to the Swamp the same evening and tells Twinkletoes she’s happy he was right.


End file.
